New book – Disease and Disability in Medieval and Early Modern Art and Literature, ed. by Rinaldo Fernando Canalis & Massimo Ciavolella, pub. by Brepols 

SUMMARY

Humanity has always shown a keen interest in the pathological, ranging from a morbid fascination with ‘monsters’ and deformities to a genuine compassion for the ill and suffering. Medieval and early modern people were no exception, expressing their emotional response to disease in both literary works and, to a somewhat lesser extent, in the plastic arts. Consequently, it becomes necessary to ask what motivated writers and artists to choose an illness or a disability and its physical and social consequences as subjects of aesthetic or intellectual expression. Were these works the result of an intrusion in their intent to faithfully reproduce nature, or do they reflect an intentional contrast against the pre-modern portrayal of spiritual ideals and, later, through the influence of the classics, the rediscovered importance and beauty of the human body?

The essays contained in this volume address these questions, albeit not always directly but, rather, through an analysis of the societal reactions to the threats and challenges that essentially unopposed disease and physical impairment presented. They cover a wide range of responses, variable, of course, according to the period under scrutiny, its technological moment, and the usually fruitless attempts at treatment.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

Introduction and Epidemiological Perspective

Rinaldo F. Canalis and Massimo Ciavolella

 

Part I. Medieval and Transitional Periods

The Art of Medicine in Byzantium: Disease and Disability in Byzantine Manuscripts

Alain Touwaide

Miracle and the Monstrous: Disability and Deviant Bodies in the Late Middle Ages

Jenni Kuuliala.

Leprosy, Melancholy, Folly and their Representations in French Medieval Literature

Gaia Gubini

Malady in Literary Texts from the Medieval and Early Modern Periods. Some Hypotheses on a Paradoxical Constellation

Joachim Küpper

Fevers, Botches and Carbuncles: Describing the Plague in Late Medieval and Early Modern Medical Treatises

Lori Jones

 

Part II. The Early Modern Period

The Role of Architecture and the Decorative Arts in Renaissance Medicine

Francis Wells

Art in Disease and Disease in Art: Reflections on Two Early Modern Paradigmatic Examples

Manuela Gallerani.

The Mal Franzoso: Between Art, History and Literature: Paracelso and Della Porta

Alfonso Paolella

The Ailing Artist

Roberto Fedi

Nicolas Poussin`s The Plague at Ashdod and the French Disease

Efrain Kristal

‘Yet have I in me something dangerous’: On the Interplay of Medicine and Maleficence in Shakespeare’s Hamlet

Sara Frances Burdorff

Textures of Lesions – Textures of Prints

Domenico Bertoloni Meli

 

Index

CFP – Invisible & Under-Represented? Disability History, Objects & Heritage Conference – 22-23 March 2022 (online)

 

About Invisible & Under-Represented

The experiences and histories of disabled people, like other marginalised groups, are often absent or hidden the museum or archive. Almost twenty years ago, both Annie Delin (2002) and Catherine Kudlick (2002) separately suggested that the place of disability in our shared past has been ‘buried in the footnotes’ or the ‘unglamorous backwaters of history’. How much has changed? More to the point, how much still needs to change and how might this shape how we look at the material preserved in museums and archives? Disabled people often develop unique relationships with the material world (Ott, 2018), and so perhaps objects offer opportunities to embed disabled people and their histories into the public consciousness.

This student led conference seeks to highlight the work of researchers investigating object based histories of disability and/or the place of disability and disabled people in museums, archives and heritage institutions. We hope to create spaces to foster further discussion around these ideas and methodologies, whilst also reaching out to those unfamiliar with the study of disability or disability history. With this conference we hope to inspire new conversations between the academic and heritage sectors, sparking new ideas about how disability and it’s history can be made more visible in the narratives they construct.

Call For Abstracts

This conference seeks to highlight the work of researchers who are investigating object-based histories of disability and/or the place of disability and disabled people in museums, archives and heritage institutions. The experiences and histories of disabled people, like other marginalised groups, are often absent from the museum or archive. However, due to disabled people’s unique relation to the material world (Ott, 2018), objects can be drawn upon by the heritage industry to bring disabled people and their narratives into the public consciousness.


We hope to create spaces to foster further discussion around these topics, alongside presenting these ideas and methodologies to those not within the study of disability or disability history. Ideally, talks will be orientated both towards those within the academic and heritage sectors, promoting further work between the two. We are particularly keen to highlight work being undertaken by PGRs.

 

We welcome abstracts and expressions of interest from all who would like to take part in this conference as a speaker.

Topics Might Include

  • Absence/invisibility of disability in museums and archives                                                                                         

  • Objects and material culture of disability                                                                                                                  

  • Highlighting disability in existing archives and collections                                                                                      

  • Methodologies in the study of disability history                                                                                                           

  • How we interpret disability historically / the ethics of display                                                                                         

  • Democratising disability heritage / barriers to access in academia and heritage                                                                                                                                            

  • Activism and museums / Heritage as a site of activism                                                                                           

  • Disability in art and heritage                                                                                                                                              

  • Changing language and terminology of disability / tackling offensive language in the archive                                                                                                                       

  • Disability and other intersectional identities and histories                                                                                           

  • Problematic commemoration of disabled people / historical ‘supercrips’

 

Submitting an Abstract

Abstracts should be a maximum 200 words, and clearly outline the premise of your proposed 20 minute paper. Please also provide:

  • your full name 
  • a short biography (Maximum 100 words) 
  • an email address that we can contact you on.

Please submit your abstract to underrephistory22@gmail.com by 23:59 (GMT) on Friday 21st January 2022.

 

Please note, to ensure accessibility, successful speakers will be contacted to explain any terminology that may need to be explained for BSL translators. For any further accessibility details for speakers, please contact underrephistory22@gmail.com.

 

More infos on the editor website

Conference – In Sickness and in Health – Online / Haifa University, Jan 12–13, 2021

Imago – The Israeli Association of Visual Culture in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, and the Department of Art History, University of Haifa are thrilled to publish the program of the 14th Annual Imago conference:

“In Sickness and in Health: Pestilence, Disease, and Healing in Medieval and Early Modern Art”.

The two-day international conference will be held online, January 12-13, 2021.

We invite you to join us for a rich event that will explore a diverse variety of fascinating subjects, such as “Healing, Humor and Pleasure”, “The Sick and Disabled Body”, and “Gendering Disease”.

Participation is free and there are no registration fees. To attend, please fill out the online registration form (below).

PROGRAM

DAY 1 – Tuesday, 12 January 2021

09:00–09:30 GREETINGS and Opening Remarks

Efraim Lev, Dean – Faculty of Humanities, University of Haifa
Emma Maayan-Fanar, Chairperson – Department of Art History, University of Haifa
Gil Fishhof, Chairperson – Imago, The Israeli Association for Visual Culture in the Middle Ages


09:30–11:00 SESSION 1. Plague and the Artistic Process: Continuity, Change and Opportunity
Chair: Gil Fishhof, University of Haifa

Daniel Unger, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Carlo Borromeo’s Plague in Bolognese Painting

Cyprien Fuchs, Neuchâtel University
Picturing the Black Death as an Opportunity. The Case of Taddeo Gaddi’s San Giovanni Fuorcivitas Polyptych

Rita Yates, Warburg Institute, University of London
The Sacred Heart of Jesus: Image, Rhetoric, and Practice during the Great Plague of Marseille (1720-22)


– 11:00–11:30 Coffee Break –


11:30–13:00 SESSION 2. Images and the Codification of Medical Knowledge
Chair: Daniel Unger, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Sivan Gottlieb, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Art of Healing: The Case of a Hebrew Herbal

Elena Berger, Institute of World History, Russian Academy of Science
From Prophecy to Medical Treatises: “Monsters” in Medical Illustrations of Early Modern France

Kathleen Walker-Meikle, King’s College, London
The Zodiac Horse: Animals in Astrological-Medical Diagrams in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Periods


– 13:00–14:30 Lunch Break –


14:30–16:00 SESSION 3. Healing, Humor and Pleasure
Chair: Gili Shalom, Tel-Aviv University

Dafna Nissim, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Pleasures vs. Plague Fear – Court Scenes in Two Manuscripts of The Decameron Made for Philip the Good

Anne Williams, University of Richmond
Healing Laughter: Death and Humor in Medieval Art

Fabienne Gallaire, Independent Scholar
Looking through the Glass: The Uroscopist Figure as Visual Satire


– 16:00–16:30 Coffee Break –


16:30–18:00 Session 4. The Sick and Disabled Body
Chair: Emma Maayan-Fanar, University of Haifa

Gili Shalom, Tel-Aviv University
Healing of the Disabled in St. Honorius Portal at Amiens Cathedral and Its Reception

Jennifer M. Feltman, The University of Alabama
The Afflicted Body and the Aesthetic of Wholeness in Gothic Sculpture

Sharon Strocchia and Ryan Kelly, Emory University
Picturing the Pox in Italian Popular Prints, 1550-1650

DAY 2 – Wednesday, 13 January 2021

09:30–11:30 SESSION 1. Gendering Disease and Healing
Chair: Jochai Rosen, University of Haifa

Nirit Ben Aryeh Debby, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Female Saints and the Plague in Italy: St. Clare of Assisi and St. Catherine of Siena

Sara Benninga, Tel-Aviv University
Lovesickness and Stone Operations: Gendered Disease and its Artistic Representation

Anastasija Ropa, Latvian Academy of Sport Education
Depicting Disease and Healing in the Early Modern Rus: The Story of St. Pyotr and St. Fevronia

Sharon Khalifa-Gueta, University of Haifa
The Image of St. Margaret Emerging from the Dragon as an Emotional Director for Coping with Childbirth


– 11:30–12:00 Coffee Break –


12:00–13:30 SESSION 2. The Power of Images: Healing and Apotropaic Functions
Chair: Sharon Khalifa-Gueta, University of Haifa

Giuditta Gentile, Independent Scholar
Sacred Images to Ward off the Plague: The Case of an Early Sixteenth-Century Italian Print

Shir Blum, Tel-Aviv University
Assisting in Childbirth: The Material Variety of Amulets as Obstetrical Aides

Rebekkah C. Hart, University of California, Riverside
‘Against All Unknown Afflictions’: Medicine and Healing in English Alabaster ‘St. John’s Heads’ (c. 1417-1550)


– 13:30-15:00 Lunch Break –


15:00–17:00 SESSION 3. Sites of Healing: Space, Identity and Trauma
Chair: Assaf Pinkus, Tel-Aviv University

Brittany Forniotis, Duke University
Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Italian Lazzaretti and Collective Trauma in Fourteenth and Fifteenth-Century Italian Cities

Joana Balsa de Pinho, University of Lisbon,
Renaissance Hospitals in Portugal: Art and Architecture Regarding Sickness and Health

Anđela Gavrilović, University of Belgrade
The Scenes of Christ’s Miraculous Healings in the Church of Hagia Sophia in Trebizond: The Meaning and the Reasons of Their Depiction

Emily Jay, Texas Tech University
Hollow, Hallowed Body: Santa Rosalia and the Reconstruction of Identities in Palermo during the 1624 Plague

The conference will be held online via Zoom. For registration and a link to the meetings please register at the link below, or contact gfishhof@staff.haifa.ac.il
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf5-EIeBObP-Euybk2GRk-Mghs_NWKt4vjorPzZ2p6JObzdiQ/viewform?fbclid=IwAR2x6E8hDNGhXhYUgYfKTVVm7CvBruQ0_oQIOz892EMhPfVKXiGVlJurXJ4

The conference is held according to Israel local time (GMT+2).

Organizing committee: Gil Fishhof, Mazi Kuzi, Jochai Rosen, Margo Stroumsa-Uzan

More infos on the organisator website

CFP – In Sickness and in Health: Pestilence, Disease, and Healing in Medieval and Early Modern Art – 14th Annual Imago Conference, University of Haifa, January 12, 2021

In light of the global turmoil caused by the COVID-19 epidemic, the 14th Annual Imago conference will examine the cultural and artistic impact of epidemics, diseases, and healing in the art of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. We hope this examination will not only shed new light on the artistic, social, and political mechanisms of both of these periods, but will also produce fresh insights into cultural and artistic responses to the current global health crisis.

Disease is an inevitable part of the human experience. Whether in times of acute crisis, the most familiar of which is the Black Death of the mid-14th century, or as a constant threat at all other times, diseases evoked varied responses, from theological formulations to the transmission of medicinal knowledge; and, not least, to artistic depictions.

We invite papers from broad and diverse points of view: case studies of iconographies dealing with disease or healing, studies of the artistic responses to specific epidemics, and comparative studies between East and West, the Christian and the Islamic worlds, etc. Interdisciplinary studies and those engaging with the production, reception, and interpretation of art concerned with disease and healing are of particular interest. Suggested topics may include, but are not limited to:

· Artistic expressions of medicinal practices

· Visual components in medical manuscripts

· Artistic responses to the Black Death and to other epidemics

· Physical and spiritual health – Medieval and Early Modern expressions

· Disease and otherness – xenophobic, racist, and anti-Semitic polemical visual expressions

· Disease – theological and moral conceptions

· Gendered aspects of disease and healing

· Disease and healing between East and West – artistic expressions

· Leprosy and its cultural and artistic representations

· Saints, relics, pilgrimage, and healing

· Disease and apotropaic practices

· Places of sickness and death: art in hospitals and cemeteries

· Images of doctors and nurses

· Representations of suffering and sickness

The conference will take place on January 12, 2021, at the University of Haifa.

* Should the ongoing Covid-19 situation prevent the conference from being held on campus, it will be held online via Zoom.

* All speakers will be allowed to deliver their paper via Zoom, even if the conference will take place physically on campus.

*We will broadcast the entire conference to participants via Zoom.

Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be sent to Dr. Gil Fishhof (gfishhof@staff.haifa.ac.il) no later than September 1st,2020. Abstracts should include the applicant’s name, professional affiliation, and a short CV. Each paper should be limited to a 20-minute presentation, to be followed by a discussion and questions. All applicants will be notified by October 1st 2020 regarding acceptance of their proposal. For additional information or further inquiries, please contact Dr. Fishhof.

Organizing committee: Dr. Gil Fishhof, Ms. Mazi Kuzi, Prof. Jochai Rosen, Dr. Margo Stroumsa-Uzan.

Permeable bodies 05 – 06 October 2018 – University college london

Permeable bodies – 05/06 October 2018 – University college london

In recent years, the human body has gained a prominent position in discussions of medieval and early modern cultures. The troublesome contingency of the human body encompassed critical boundaries between inside and outside, and became a central concern in religious, political, and economical developments. Medieval bodies were permeable microcosms, not only sites containment but also of revelatory experiences. In the early modern period, body and identity were indistinct, interdependent categories, inseparable from the natural and cultural space that they inhabited. This logic of perpetual fluidity both generated a disquieting sense of impending doom, but also allowed for the propagation of multiple possibilities of understanding, which materialised into a rich visual and material culture.

We are delighted to invite all those interested in medieval and early modern studies to a 2-day conference on Friday 5 and Saturday 6 October 2018 at University College London. This event will explore medieval and early modern notions of the changing body, as well as changing notions of the body. Images and ideas of permeable bodies will serve as an inclusive platform of inquiry into bodies of different race, gender, sex, and ability.

We welcome 20 minutes talks from scholars of any career stage. We are particularly interested in incisive and provoking perspectives on bodies traditionally relegated to the margins, in conjunction with gender and disability studies. We seek critical and original responses on the theme of corporeal permeability across not only disciplines, but also chronological and geographical boundaries.

The conference includes a workshop at the Wellcome Library, where selected images from the archives will be displayed in a private study room.

Keynote speaker: Dr. Jack Hartnell (University of East Anglia)

Please send a short abstract (200-300 words) and a biography (100 words) by Monday 23 July to Laura Scalabrella Spada and Lauren Rozenberg at permeablebodies@gmail.com. We will notify applicants by Monday 6 August.

Bursaries available on application. Please visit permeablebodies.wordpress.com for more details on how to apply, updates, and additional information.

 

More infos on the organistor’s website

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